My Journey into Islam.
When i was about a year old I first became aware (or recieved a clear sign) that there was a God cared about me...
I remember my dad getting ready to give me my first hair cut and how big the scissors were to me. I got scared ,for some reason, that those big sharp blades would be used to cut off my ears. My father noticed I was not liking thoe scissors near me and told me: "I promise if you will hold still You will not be cut(by the scissors)." I then relaxed and believed my dad and he began to cut my hair. I remember him starting to cut and it going alright. Then he actually cut/nicked my ear with the scissors! I couldnt believe it! I was so disillusioned and shocked he had broken his promise! My parents were (and are) Christian and i guess i had heard them pray. Or it could be i instinctively knew Allah existed. In either case, I recall praying: "God, please heal my wound" I prayed this in my thoughts, not really knowing how to speak. (not sure how i could understood to pray from my parents <shrug>) While I was praying I was holding a small toy near the wound. when i looked on my shoulder where the blood has been pouring onto i saw nothing, even the pain had gone and there was no feeling in the ear that a wound had ever existed. (even now there is no scar i have been able to find and I have looked very hard for it ever since i can remember) When my dad returned from going to find a bandaid he looked dumbfounded as he saw no signs of the wound that had been inflicted.
At the exact moment i had lost faith in the love and trustworthiness of human beings Allah(swt) showed me His trustworthiness and Love.
This experience forged in me a faith that has driven me to seek God and his ways ever since.
My parents brought me up christian. I do not remember the chuches we went to before i was seven. When i was about seven my dad took me "church visiting) every sunday to find a church for the family. I ended up picking out with him a methodist church because the way the pastor there talked to the kids and gave them a good moral lesson before going to sunday school.
At the time I felt good about that and was very happy to recieve my first bible a few years later and be confirmed at age 16 into the church. Some time after getting my first bible and reading it regularly I made my first complete reading of the bible in a single day. a few years after this i repeated "the feat". And i felt during these reading and every time after that God was near me.
Later, when we mved to Massachusetts I remember not feeling good about the church we were going to. In act i can actually remember feeling some of this before we left New York, about the Methodist Church, however the feeling was not as stron as it was when going to the new church. Somethig didnt make sense.
I remember picking up a magazine back then that talked about the paganism in christianity. The organization that published it was another christian church. While i did feel they were accurate in pointing out these paganic aspects of christianity; i did not believe their particulaqr church was the truth either. However, when i did move to Albany i brought with me a copy of this magazine and a couple of their free pamphlets so i would have something to remind me of what falsehoods to look for in other churches i might consider joining.....
Second Installment
When I moved to Albany I became independant from my parents and decided that i need to begin in greater earnest to find the True Path God had made for mankind to follow. No longer was i hindered by the concern of offending my parents in making religious choices. I definitely believed that God loves his children(mankind) and He would not leave them without direction in this life.
However i do believe i became over prideful on my belief that right away i would find this truth. Call it the arrogance of youth as you will, but i thought it would be easy to find God's truth right away. I believe the result of this immature attitude was the very reason Allah allowed me to go through the trials i went through in seeking Him.
I was about 22 years old when the following took place.
I was up late one night and saw a commercial for the LDS church. It spoke alot about "restored truth" and a "free book". One of my weaknesses was for anything free. Also the driving force of my life was in seeking after God's Truth whatever form that might be. I called their toll free number for the free book(they did not say in the commercials back then it would be delivered by missionaries/representatives of their church). About two weeks later I found at my door two young men dressed in suits in ties were sent to deliver this book. I quickly grabbed it from them and thanked them and started to shut the door. They asked :"Can we tell you about the book?". This halted me a moment ... what if this book was God's own truth and i was about to shut the door on learning something about it from those who represent Him? I let the two well groomed strangers in my door and they introduced themselves and they started (unknown to me) a serioes of 6 lectures on their religion. I hadnt realized i had just let in the beginning of one of the biggest trials of my life.
To cut a long story short... suffice it to say i became a member of their church and spent most of my time actively preaching thier "restored truth". I was such a believer because i arrogantly thought "Why would god allow _me_ to have a hard time finding His truth"? I spent about twelve years ardently believing, but Allah hadnt left me behind. After all these years of preaching the book of mormon and Joe Smith I began to realize there were some huge inconsistancies in beliefs. It seemed at one point one of their "prophets" would reveal something and later on when it became either a politically incorrect view or one that seemed silly to the current "prophet and quorum of twelve" they outright denopunced it or changed the wording of the book of mormon to make it seem impossible it was ever believed by them. Allah was guiding me to a realization that took me two more years to act on so prideful was I.
When i finally got passed my pride and recognized God's loving hand of correction in showing me the falsehood that is mormonism I immediately went to my "bishop" and toldf him in no uncertain terms that I wished no further involvement in the church and no further representatives of the church to be sent to my home. Frankly he was dumbstruck by my eagerness to leave. He attempted to reclaim me into the flock by the same strategems they hqad taught me to use during my preaching duties for that church. I recognized immediately what he was doing and left the building... I wasnt going to let anyone keep me from doing what God had showed me to do.
For a while after leaving i was doing pretty good. I no longer read LDS materials of any kind. I even got a new "non denominational" Bible and a few other free christian books on Jesus etc. But after a few months i realized i was basically in the same boat i was in before i became mormon. I still didnt know where God's truth was. I became a little depressed ...I had been fooled before. Even my own emotions and throuight had misled me. I had been manipulated like a puppet into the wrong faith and it really hurt. I didnt know how I could ever find God's truth again...espescially after spending so many years leading others astray along with me. I felt hopeless.
Third Installment
This was a time in a life where i felt both scared and and scarred. I recognized deeply i could not depend on material or "emotional" senses for accurate help in discerning truth. Manipulation of thought processes was one aspect of mormonism that became clearer the closer I got to discovering it's falsehood. I would never again allow someone to manipulate me into belief in anything again. I was wary of entering another "group think" type of religion (often called by many cults).
Yes of Course the truth I had been seeking all my life would certainly have to have certain standards all believers would be reconized by their possesing or striving to live. But a necessary function of truth is the ability of Believers to come to recognize it on their own without pressure be it peer or otherwise.
Eventually the difficulty i was experiencing, in a void of almost non-faith, drove me to seek a place, so to speak, for free spiritual growth without pressures of performance or "big brother" looking over my shoulder to see if i was "living the truth".
During my time in Mormonism I had been tempted away (so to speak) by certain older religions i had recieved fractional exposure to through tarot cards, myth books i read as a child, and other aspects of western education which attempt to make a person more well rounded (and also, to some extent overwhelm, with the freedom to choose ones beliefs as one is wont).
I spent a couple of months buying copies of a few books/kits on divination, occult theosophy, and polytheist beliefs. I spent time in at least four distinct pagan belief sytems....nat actually in group settings so much (though i did talk to other pagans through the internet that were engaged in a life dedicated to that particular pagan belief i was researching at the time.
Eventually i discoverd no satisfaction in any pagan religious system and began losing hope in the idea that Christianity had obscured some vital truth the pagans had all along before the christians wiped paganism off the map. . The groups of pagans i associated with considered themselves basically neo-pagans or reconstructionist pagans. I began constructing, if you will, my own "unique" pagan worship system:
embarrass!
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